The First of May
by Emiline Starwing
Summary: Ichigo and Rukia were walking home in the rain when they saw a child standing by the flooding river bank.


**The First of May**

One shot Summary: Ichigo and Rukia were walking home in the rain when they see a child standing by the river bank.

Pairings: Ichiruki, of course, what else?

Rating: T, for violence and Ichigo's mouth

Spoilers: This takes place almost a year after the Soul Society arc, there are spoilers for that. It doesn't matter if you follow the manga or the anime timeline though.

Disclaimer: Really, if I owned Bleach, nobody would watch it cause it won't be the masterpiece it is now.

Note: Written for the BF Ichiruki contest, with the theme of Seasons

**

* * *

The First of May**

Part One

_-It rains often in the spring. The sky seems perpetually cloudy, and the earth grieves. But then, summer was coming._

"What in the world is that?" Ichigo demanded, pointing at the blindingly pink contraption Rukia had drawn from her backpack.

She barely glanced at him before replying. "An umbrella. It's raining."

"You are not walking beside me with that!" Ichigo folded his hands and stood his ground when Rukia glared at him. Thankfully, the other students had already headed home. With exams looming in the distance, even Keigo was beginning to study. There was no one about to see their fight.

"And what's wrong with this?" Rukia challenged. Her eyes were narrowed and her grip tightened on the plastic pink hilt of her weapon.

"It's pink, and it has rabbits on it." Ichigo reached out only to have the point of the umbrella in his face. Briefly, he thought, _so this is what it feels like to have Rukia point a sword at you._ Angrily, he swatted the umbrella aside. "Can't you get something normal for once?"

Abruptly, Rukia let the umbrella open, the metal branches hitting him painfully in the elbow. She swung the pink horror over one shoulder and gave him a disdainful glance before marching out from the shelter of the roof into the downpour.

"That little-" Ichigo fumed, watching the puddles splash as she stepped through them. He drew his own umbrella, dark blue and more sensible by far, and opened it. There was no talking sense to Rukia, especially concerning her obsession with rabbits and cute things.

It was laughable, how tough Rukia pretended to be. Before her brother came for her, Ichigo thought Rukia had no tears. Her face was usually as harsh and cold as the winter.

After she had stepped through the door and back into Soul Society, Ichigo finally realized. She had been grieving too. Like him, her memory was filled with rain and the scent of blood. And Ichigo couldn't leave her to die. Her tear-stained face wouldn't leave his thoughts.

Sighing, he walked behind her in silence. It was humiliating, how he was the one following while she was clearly the one who had started the fight, but it couldn't be helped that they shared a home.

The sound of the flooding river reached his ears. Ichigo half turned, and realized they were at the riverbank where his mother had died almost seven years ago. The clash of water and rain, for once, didn't bring back the nightmare. Instead, his thoughts were filled with-

Abruptly, Rukia dropped her pink Chappy umbrella and began racing down the slope towards the river.

"Rukia!" Ichigo shouted, horrified. His own umbrella clattered into the puddles as he skidded down towards her. Mud splattered up his pants. All he could see was Rukia, running hard towards the empty river.

Her feet touched the water, and the roars of the river covered his cries. Rukia turned as the current pushed her sideways, eyes bright and shocked.

Ichigo's hands closed around her hair and he yanked back. They collapsed on the muddy bank, both panting. Rukia's hands immediately went to the roots of her hair. It was a moment before she could speak.

"Ow! You pulled out half of my hair!" She gingerly felt the back of her scalp, feeling indignant tears of pain well up. "Idiot! What did you think you were doing?"

"What was I doing? What the hell were _you_ doing?" Ichigo snapped, wiping mud from the corner of his mouth. "Suddenly running into the river like that? Did you _want_ to die?"

"Shut up!" Rukia sat up, glancing around. "I thought I saw something. That's all."

"I should've yanked harder," Ichigo muttered. "I can't believe you! Idiot! I shouldn't have bothered."

"Nobody asked you to!" Rukia shot back. They were both caked with mud. She glowered at her uniform and tried to smooth it down. "Now look, this is the only set of uniform I have. It's your fault."

"Get Yuzu to wash it tonight," Ichigo said. He blinked in alarm when Rukia began walking towards the river again. "Oi! Where do you think you're going?"

Rukia didn't answer, staring out at the angry, flooding river as the rain blew her bangs back. She was frowning and her eyes were clear and focused. Ichigo wondered if she really did see something he didn't.

"What did you see?"

"A boy," Rukia replied, eyes worried. "A little boy with his backpack was here. He was walking down the river bank, about to be swept away."

A chill ran down Ichigo's spine. "He's not here now, is he?"

"No, he vanished when you grabbed my hair." Rukia turned to him angrily. "It wasn't a spirit, but a human. He was really in danger."

"I didn't see anything," Ichigo snorted. "You're daydreaming." He was about to continue when he saw Rukia's face. It seemed lost, and her eyes were flickering uncertainly.

"It was a little boy with orange hair like yours," she said. "He was wearing… a bright yellow coat, and… I wanted to help him." She swallowed, turning her gaze away.

Something was clogging Ichigo's throat. Spring was filled with grief and rain. When his mother died, he had wanted to drown in his sorrow. It was only for the sake of his sisters that he stood up again. It would've been so easy to be swept away…

But then, a short, dark haired god of death had broken into his room and turned his life upside down.

"Well," he said, feigning nonchalance. "I think you already did. Help him, I mean."

Rukia turned to him questioningly, but Ichigo didn't elaborate. "We should get going. The old man is going to throw a fit if we're late for dinner."

"Your father is strange," Rukia told him, looking up. The rain showed no signs of letting up, and they were both soaked down to the bones. Her hair glued itself to her face and she sighed. "And I brought an umbrella too. Why does it rain so much here?"

"It rains a lot in the spring," Ichigo said, beginning to pick his way back up the slope. "It'll let up a bit in the summer." He paused. "You can stop worrying about that boy. I know who he is and he's fine."

"Is that so," Rukia clambered up behind them, glancing back. She lowered her eyes. "I see."

At the top of the hill Rukia let out an extremely un-Rukia-like shriek.

"My Chappy umbrella!" It, along with Ichigo's umbrella, had been blown back into a nearby fence, blue and pink twined together in a nest of ripped fabric and bent metal. Ichigo laughed at the horrified expression on Rukia's face before she kicked him. "That's _not_ funny! Insensitive! Obnoxious! Self-absorbed!"

"You dropped it on your own," Ichigo interrupted. "Besides, we won't need them any more. We're already soaked, and it's already May. Summer is coming soon."

**

* * *

The First of May**

Part Two

_-With just a little heat, the ice melted into spring, forcing winter back a step. When summer comes, the rain will dry, and the sky will no longer weep._

"You're late, Ichigo!" Isshin aimed a hard kick to his son's face.

"Oi!" Blocking frantically, Ichigo rammed his heel against Isshin's stomach. "Shut up and grow up already!" Their exchange of blows quickly escalated into a right as Rukia ducked past them towards the dinner table.

"Sorry we were late," Rukia's face was all smiles as she approached the dinner table. "Yuzu, can I ask you a favor? This is my only set of uniform, and maybe you could help me clean it for tomorrow?"

Yuzu nodded, eyes wide at the vast amounts of mud spraying away from the fight by the door. Karin's eyes were suspicious, and a wide smile was about her lips.

"What were you and Ichi-nii doing out so late?" She asked.

"Nothing really," Rukia said, turning towards her room to change. "Ichigo fell in the river and I had to pull him out. That's all."

"What did you say?" Ichigo demanded, foot pressing Isshin's face against the ground. "_I_ fell into the damned river?"

"It's alright, son!" Isshin flipped over and faced Ichigo seriously. "I know you've reached that age, but for these things. You should come home and do it in be-"

"Shut up!"

Ichigo decided that he secretly hated his family. Throughout dinner, Karin gave him sly, knowing glances from above her plate, Yuzu was a brooding ball of silence beside him, but worst of all was his father.

"I thank you, Rukia-chan," he said in all seriousness as she came down to dinner, now clean and changed. The ends of her hair were still wet as they drooped down against her cheek.

"Eh?" She looked puzzled as Isshin's mouth ran on.

"You've saved Ichigo from the life of a bachelor," Isshin wept. "As his father, I was beginning to worry for him. I was worried that one day, he would give up on women and go down a path of no return."

"Ah, um, I didn't do that much," Rukia smiled, slightly embarrassed. "And it _did_ feel good to kick him around once in a while."

"A woman after my own heart," Isshin exclaimed.

Ichigo allowed his forehead to touch the table top and groaned. For someone as old as Rukia, she could be remarkably tactless. She definitely knew his family suspected they were more than friends, but she didn't seem to care.

He hurriedly swallowed the remainder of his food and exited the house. The rain had transformed into a drizzle, and he sat down on the steps to brood again. He usually did his thinking in his room, but ever since the invasion of the pale skinned little shinigami, the place was no longer his own. Even after Rukia got her own room, his was filled with memories of her. Ichigo couldn't think without being paranoid that Rukia would burst out of his closet.

So caught up in his thoughts, Ichigo didn't realize Rukia was standing beside him until she nudged him with her foot.

"If I was an enemy, you'd be dead," she told him.

"Hm, if there was an enemy, you'd be here screaming your head off at me long before he got here." He reached out his hand and let the rain water pool in his palm.

"Ichigo," Rukia prodded. "That boy by the river. It was you."

"Yeah," he said. He remembered her once saying to him, _'I can't step into your heart without getting dirty. So… I'll wait. When you're ready to talk, talk to me.'_ "Rukia?"

"What?"

"After my mom died, I couldn't go to school," Ichigo said quietly. Rukia turned to him in shock. "I would wear my backpack, and walk up and down that riverbank. I kept thinking, maybe I would turn around and see mom. Even if she had died, I couldn't fathom that she wouldn't come back to see us. I wanted to see her so badly… even if she was a ghost."

Quietly, Rukia squatted.

"Now I know why mom didn't come back," Ichigo gritted his teeth. "She was eaten. She couldn't come back because she was eaten. I was so stupid. I should've known she would come back if she could."

"Ichigo…" Rukia whispered.

"Don't," he said harshly. "I'm not sad. Not anymore. I can protect them now. It won't happen again. I have enough power to protect everyone now."

"Your mother didn't want you to protect her."

"I know," Ichigo suddenly grinned. "Not just that. Now, I can finally tell her… I'm happy. I know where I'm going and what I want. This year, I can go to her grave and tell her that."

"Finally," Rukia sat back, a smug smile back on her face.

"And you're not tagging along this year!" Ichigo said loudly. "Unlike last year, when you just showed up."

Rukia's eyes widened. "How rude," she said indignantly. "As if I would intrude on private family events if I didn't need to!"

"Unless," Ichigo smirked. "You tell me yours." He was still smiling when Rukia's face blanked. "Your story. You know why I hate the rain. Why do you?"

He wasn't smiling when she sat back and began to speak. "I killed my former vice captain," she said. Her back was straight and here eyes were hard. "And he was… very kind to me. He never coddled me, and never hesitated to yell at me when I was stupid. He was… different."

Ichigo blinked when Rukia leaned in close to observe his face. It was as if she was staring past him. "He looked like you."

"Did you like him?" Ichigo frowned.

Rukia nodded, eyes still fixed on his face. "But he's dead."

"I'm not," Ichigo said, leaning forward. "Unlike him, I'm not dead."

A smile broke over Rukia's face. Ichigo, though he had never thought of Rukia as beautiful, found himself stunned. The dim light filtering through the half open door and the steady drip of the rain only made the moment more surreal.

"That's true. Unlike him, you're still alive," Rukia conceded.

And their lips met. Neither was sure who made the move. Later, Rukia would protest to the twins, _'It was Ichigo, of course, I would never start something like that,' _and Ichigo would say, _'It wasn't me, she was lying. She lied about the river too!"_ All they knew was that for one moment they were breathing each other's breaths.

It was a light, ghostly touch, their lips on each other, like the flutters of a butterfly's wings.

Abruptly, they realized what they were doing and frantically pushed apart. Ichigo's head slammed against the wall in his haste to escape. "That-" He stuttered. "That's never happening again!"

"Of course," Rukia snapped back, wiping her lips vigorously. "That was utterly disgusting."

"Just so we're clear on that," Ichigo warned, holding out a hand as if to ward off evil before vanishing inside. Rukia closed her eyes and too several deep breaths, leaning out from under the roof into the rain to cool down her flushed skin. Her heart wouldn't stop racing.

At the door, Isshin was reclining against a wall, adjusting his watch. "Ichigo," he asked when his son entered. "Is today the first of May?"

"Yeah," Ichigo grumble, feeling the color rush to his face.

For he heard another question. _'Ichigo, is today the first of many?'_

* * *

Author's note: Well, my first fan fic. I'm sorry if it was boring, but I couldn't help it. '

Truthfully, I have no idea why Rukia was seeing a nine year old Ichigo wandering around the riverbank. I just thought it'd be a cool moment, but it didn't come out that way.

Thank you so much for reading, and review if you can, please!


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